A group of tech giants has entered a "staggering" winning bid of $4.5 billion …

The bidding war over the patent portfolio from bankrupt Canadian telecom Nortel's has ended. Google began the bidding on the collection of 6,000+ patents at $900 million, but Nortel announced today that the wining bid came from a consortium of companies including Apple, Microsoft, and RIM, which pooled $4.5 billion.

Nortel's portfolio includes numerous patents on mobile technology, including 3G and 4G wireless networking, optics, voice processing, semiconductors, and more. "The extensive patent portfolio touches nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets as well, including Internet search and social networking," Nortel said in a statement.

It was revealed late last year that Apple, Google, and RIM were among several companies looking to buy some or all of Nortel's extensive wireless technology patents after the company went bankrupt. In April, Google announced that it had made a $900 million offer on the whole enchilada, hoping to shore up its relatively weak patent portfolio as a defense against numerous patent infringement threats levied against Android handset makers.

"We hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community—which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome—continue to innovate," wrote Google general counsel Kent Walker. "In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it's the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners."

The Department of Justice briefly investigated both Apple's and Google's attempts to bid on the Nortel portfolio for potential antitrust concerns. However, it gave both companies, as well as Intel, the green light to move forward with bids last week.

Bidding began on Monday, and today it was revealed that a group of companies comprised of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM, and Sony won the auction for $4.5 billion.

Philadelphia-based intellectual property lawyer Patrick Igoe called the winning bid a "staggering amount of money," though he noted that each company in the consortium could have paid $750 million each, significantly less than Google's original $900 million bid. It's not clear if each company contributed equally or will equally share in ownership of the patents in question. However, it seems likely all six companies have agreed to some sort of mutual licensing agreement.

Big money bidding

"This is a sizable, strategically relevant portfolio," intellectual property analyst Florian Müller told Ars. "The bidding price presumably skyrocketed because bidders didn't just want to secure the patents for themselves—they also wanted to keep them out of the hands of at least some of the other bidders."

Some bidders may have wanted to acquire the patents with the intent to identify potential infringers and extract licensing fees. Others, like Google, were likely hoping to keep the patents from being used by patent trolls, to serve as a defensive mechanism against lawsuits, and to create leverage in cross-licensing deals. "I guess the winning consortium made a defensive, market-clearing purchase," Müller said.

Android is already at the heart of 45 active patent infringement lawsuits, and Android handset makers are one-by-one being forced to strike licensing deals with Microsoft and others. According to Müller, Google lost an important strategic opportunity by failing to outbid its competitors.

"In light of Android's patent problems it's surprising that Google didn't outbid everyone else," Müller said. "It could have afforded more than $4.5 billion but it doesn't appear to be truly committed to Android."

The situation isn't that simple, though, according to Igoe. Without a thorough analysis of Nortel's portfolio, there's no guarantee that it would have served as an effective defense against Android's current threats. Furthermore, "$4.5 billion pays a lot of licensing fees against more specific threats," Igoe wrote on his blog.

It's worth noting that a similar consortium comprised of Microsoft, Apple, EMC, and Oracle acquired 882 patents from Novell late last year when the company agreed to be acquired by software vendor Attachmate. Those patents gave Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle (embroiled in its own lawsuit with Google over Java) additional leverage against the Android operating system.

The sale of Nortel's patent is still subject to both US and Canadian court approvals expected on July 11. Once approved, the transfer should be completed by the third quarter of this year.